Referring to the Italian context, rather recently, in July 2015, the Network of Universities for Sustainable Development (RUS1) was promoted by the Conference of Rectors of Italian Universities (CRUI). RUS is the first experience of coordination and sharing between all Italian universities engaged in the issues of environmental sustainability and social responsibility with the aim of spreading the culture and good practices of sustainability, both inside and outside the universities; promote the SDGs and contribute to their achievement; strengthen the recognition and value of the Italian experience at an international level. At the time of the thesis (May 2021), RUS counts 78 Italian universities with continuous growth and it is divided into seven working groups dedicated to priority issues for the achievement of the institutional objectives of the Network: climate change, education, energy, food, mobility, waste, and inclusion and social justice. A survey is carried out annually with the dual purpose of having an always updated image of an ever-expanding network and mapping the activities and initiatives of universities on the subject of sustainable development. For the 2020 survey, an online questionnaire was administered at 74 universities adhering to the RUS in April 2020 and 59 responses were received, with a response rate of 80%. The questionnaire is structured in 11 sections: the principles of sustainable development, Agenda 2030 and SDGs, dele-gations, organizational structure, sustainability activities, students, communication channels, reporting, networks and, finally, the specific questions of the working groups.
From the results it emerged that the areas of work in which it is possible to find references to the principles of sustainable development are: in the first place teaching, followed by third mission, then research and finally management
1https://reterus.it/
of the campus. The first three SDGs mainly attributable to the activities of the universities in question are: goal 4 (quality education), goal 3 (good health and well-being), and goal 13 (climate action). The barriers and obstacles most encountered in the implementation of actions for sustainable development were: lack of dedicated resources, difficulty in measuring effectiveness and impacts, procedural and bureaucratic barriers. A positive fact is that 56 out of 59 respondents declared the involvement of students in the university’s sustainable development activities mainly through dedicated awareness-raising events, then through the activation of specific projects with a defined duration, then through continuous collaboration and finally through specific calls. 27 universities have declared to join the Greenmetric ranking, 13 the THE Impact ranking and 28 to not join any ranking.
The RUS collaborates with other sustainability-related national associations, such as ASviS2 (Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development), born on February 3, 2016 to raise awareness of the importance of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development and to mobilize in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The Alliance currently brings together over 300 of the most important institutions and networks of civil society (associations representing the social partners, networks of civil society associations, associations of local authorities, universities and public and private research centers, associations of subjects active in worlds of culture and information, foundations and networks of foundations, Italian subjects belonging to international associations and networks active on sustainable development issues).The ASviS Annual Report is the main publication of the Alliance for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in Italy. The document, in addition to providing updates on the commitment of the international community for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development of the UN, focuses on the national context, articulated on two levels:
an analysis on the progress of our country, and an organic framework of policy recommendations, to be submitted to top management, to indicate the areas in which action must be taken to ensure the economic, social and environmental sustainability of our development model and thus influence the strategies and activities of the Government. According the 2020 ASviS report, for Italy the
2https://asvis.it/
path towards the UN 2030 Agenda in 2020 is recorded with a worsening for 9 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. For this reason, there is a need to undertake a change capable of generating new employment and economic and social development, using EU and national resources consistently to relaunch the country with a view to economic, social and environmental sustainability.
1.2.1 The Italian third mission
As explained in the article [22], one of the challenges to be faced to make the Italian university stronger, is undoubtedly opening up to the outside world, to businesses, to the public sector, to private and public research organizations, and to investors.
Circumscribing the skills, ideas, and projects developed within the university within the confines of the Campus and not knowing how to enhance and transfer the work of innovation and knowledge production to the outside is a serious lack and a significant loss of opportunity. To achieve the strategic goal of the university’s third mission, it is necessary to create an operational infrastructure dedicated to third mission activities. This infrastructure must include the components of the university that are most involved: the administrative offices, technicians, teachers and researchers and those who are the real protagonists and who can and must play an important role, the students. While European universities are already undergoing an advanced institutional and organizational change, Italian universities still have little institutional coordination of processes and resources. In the other countries, in fact, universities offer a service (research and technical consulting) and a private entity finances it or there is direct collaborative involvement in research activities created between academic, institutions and other entities, whether public or private [23].
The third mission has been defined as the "openness of the university towards the socio-economic context through the valorization and transfer of knowledge"
by the body of the Italian republic "Agenzia nazionale di valutazione del sistema universitario e della ricerca" (ANVUR). Despite the difficulties involved in the analysis of such a complex phenomenon, due to the fact that the legislative provision is still incomplete, the measurement and evaluation of the third mission have for some years been the subject of increasing attention both at the local and at the
national level. In fact, in 2013, for the first time, Italian universities were involved by Anvur in a first national collection of data about the third mission (VQR 2004-2010). The results represented the first measurement of third mission activities in Italy which already highlighted the limits of still unstable metrics and reliability of data sources. Overall 82 Italian universities, out of the 95 evaluated, have raised over 3 billion euros for "third party" contracts, or research or consultancy contracts with external clients. An increasing value over time that would denote greater attention to this activity, but also the growing need to collect additional resources for funding for national research projects certainly not comparable to those of other European Union countries [24]. The starting point for the institutional accreditation of the third mission is the legislative decree no. 19 of 27 January 2012 and the subsequent ministerial decree, Ministry of Education, University and Research, no. 47 of 30 January 2013 which recognized the third mission as an institutional mission of the University alongside the traditional research and teaching missions. During the second evaluation exercise, the third mission has been inserted in the VQR 2011-2014, with the aim of promoting greater awareness of this type of initiative among the institutions. The assessment of the third mission was entrusted to a commission of experts using the informed peer review approach.
From the results of the data analyzed, a non-homogeneous picture emerged in relation to the third mission activities carried out by the Italian universities, due to a possible lack of awareness of the third mission activities, rather than as a lack of initiatives. Although lagging behind other European countries, there is a significant degree of organizational maturation achieved by technology transfer activities in Italian universities thanks to the creation of offices specifically dedicated to this.
In January 2020, the third 2015-2019 VQR exercise was launched and in July 2020 the commission that will evaluate the case studies concerning the third mission activities carried out by the Institutions and Departments was formed, composed not only of highly qualified teachers and proven expertise on the third mission but also of public executives and personalities from the productive and financial world, cultural institutions and territories. The case studies refer to interventions whose impact is verifiable in the following fields of action:
(a) Enhancement of intellectual or industrial property (patents, etc.);
(b) Academic entrepreneurship (spin-off, start-up, etc.);
(c) Intermediation and technology transfer structures (incubators, technology transfer offices, third mission associations, etc.);
(d) Artistic and cultural heritage (museum centers, archaeological excavations, historical libraries, sports facilities, and theaters, etc);
(e) Health protection (screening and awareness campaigns, etc);
(f) Lifelong learning (continuing education courses, MOOCs, etc.);
(g) Public engagement (organization of cultural activities of public utility, scientific publication, initiatives to involve citizens in research, activities of involvement and interaction with the school world);
(h) Public goods and policies for inclusion (programs of public interest, participa-tion in urban development projects, etc.);
(i) Open science and activities related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Each case study will be evaluated by the interdisciplinary commission according to the following criteria: social, economic and cultural dimension of the impact;
relevance with respect to the reference context; added value for the beneficiaries;
contribution of the proposing structure, enhancing the scientific aspect where relevant. Considering the fact of having few consolidated data, poorly structured and not always standardized, an extremely significant territorial variable, a blurred boundary between activities carried out for individual purposes and activities carried out at the level and for institutional purposes, the Commission of Experts for the evaluation of the Third Mission (CETM) in its final report, suggests that the evaluation of the third mission cannot disregard qualitative analysis and increasingly orient itself towards case studies and on-site visits in the future. It will thus be possible to study the social consequences of the third mission, the impact and actual benefits for society [25].